Diving in Oman: "
After having traveled for over 18 months and 35 countries the marine expedition has spent the past few weeks moving around Oman looking at the marine life and marine related issues. The colors in this country are dazzling, from the blood red sand dunes to the iceberg clear water in the Wadis, the ominous yet intriguing chocolate brown mountains, glittering oceans and peach tinged rock formations. There is nothing, in my mind, quite as wonderful as natural beauty and Oman is full of this amazing resource. It leaves you spell bound at times. Oh and just for clarification, a wadi is a riverbed that snakes up through mountains rising above you on either side. An impressive sight to see. The only danger comes when the wadis sporadically , and devastatingly flood, clearing out entire villages and roads , which we saw on regular occasions.
We began our stay in Muscat and did some diving off the coast both heading towards the South and up around fairah island. These dives were impressive and we saw an abundance of aquatic species including huge cuttlefish, rays, eels, many different fish species and turtles. While the water is not as clean as it would be in the summer months (due to algal blooming) we were still very impressed with the visibility we were getting, considering the last few countries that we had visited before, this was as clean as we had seen in a while. The views from the boats whilst travelling to and from the sites are so beautiful and the dive sites themselves, even though regularly dived, are interesting, and fairly undamaged havens for all creatures of the sea. We encountered a pod of dolphins estimated to be over 700 individuals strong and saw a sperm whale’s tail high in the air as it descended to the depths off the continental shelf just a few kilometers out to sea from Muscat, plus we got to dive with two turtles…..let the jealousy begin.
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